China can greatly reduce its reliance on coal, but probably won’t

In Shuozhou, a nondescript city of 1.6m people in northern China’s Shanxi province, the veins of the local economy run black with coal. To the north of the city lies one of the largest open-pit mines in the country. Shuozhou’s mines churn out 200m tonnes of the black stuff every year (the country as a whole produces 4.8bn tonnes). Lines of trucks carry it to be washed, sorted, then burned in power stations across the country. If China ditched coal in favour of cleaner sources of power, the city “would be finished”, warns Sun Zhigang, a recently retired miner who is out walking his dog in the park.